ARGUING A CONSORTIUM CLAIM IN A BRAIN DAMAGE CASE

Have you thought about the reality of a consortium loss of a spouse who has been seriously injured ? The truth is that the loss isn’t just one of love. It is much more than that. In a situation involving brain injury it involves adjusting to an entirely new person. Here are some thoughts to consider in such a case:

1. HE MARRIED HER FOR WHO SHE WAS WHEN THEY MARRIED & OVER 40 YRS GREW TO LOVE WHO SHE BECAME They could finish each other sentences – know what the other thinking and adjusted to what wasn’t perfect in the other.

2 THEY WERE LOOKING FORWARD TO ENJOYING THE GOLDEN YEARS TOGETHER & HAD PLANS FOR THEIR FUTURETheir dreams of a future together have been shattered. Instead of golden retirement she has become dependent upon him and he has become her caregiver for the rest of their lives. Their golden years won’t be spent in enjoying life, but in surviving. Her goals in retirement have been reduced to trying to learn to drive again — something 16 yr olds can do better then she can.

3. THIS WAS SUDDENLY THRUST UPON THEM NO FAULT OF THEIRS They both are totally innocent – not fault of hers or his. They were unprepared for it. They were forced to immediately have to deal with an enormous cross which was not of their making. His role has been suddenly imposed upon him: the role of nurse, house cleaner, her caretaker and sole manager of their home and lives.

4. HE WILL NEVER AGAIN SEE THE WOMAN HE MARRIED AND GREW TO LOVEThe woman he met, fell in love with and married, the woman he grew to know and experience life with no longer exists and never will exist again. He has to get to know a totally different person than the one he knew and loved for so many years. It’s like suddenly being married to someone he never met or knew before. There is nothing anyone can ever do to change her back to the person he knew and loved for forty years and who is children and grandchildren knew and loved.

5 THIS JUST DOESN’T IMPACT HER, BUT HUSBAND, CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN, FRIENDS. Like ripples caused by a rock thrown into a calm, quiet pond, the profound changes will rush out into his life, her life, their life, their children, friends and everyone they know or deal with.

6. WHAT HAS BEEN TAKEN AWAY IS PRICELESS: The essence of what made her her, her personality and her personhood were suddenly destroyed. The woman he married gone forever. Who they were as marital partnership gone. Everything that made them the married couple they were utterly destroyed

10. TO ADD TO THEIR SUFFERING WHEN THEY SEEK JUSTICE TO REMEDY THIS CATASTROPHE THEY ARE TOLD IT’S REALLY THEIR FAULT She is told she needs to learn to be independent. He’s told it’s his fault, he is overly protective of her. Not only that they hear the defense lawyers tell the jury they contrived the extent of the injuries with their doctor.They refuse to be accountable. Instead, the defense lawyers institute total warfare against them simply because they have asked for basic justice from an American jury.